Calling time on my zero-hours job

I’m about to lose the zero-hours job I love.

Maybe “lose” isn’t the right word. But the contract under which I work has been taken from the charitable sector and awarded to a private company. The new bosses at the multi-million pound business taking over refuse to honour existing terms and conditions. They won’t even discuss them.

Instead, they’re offering exactly the same work with a 44 per cent cut in pay. (51 per cent for those living outside London).

So thanks, but no thanks. There’s austerity, and then there’s just plain insulting.

Let me explain. For the past two years I have worked as an “Expert by Experience” for the Care Quality Commission. I accompany CQC inspectors on unannounced visits to care homes for the elderly where I talk to residents and their relatives about their care. I visit people in their rooms, observe activities and meal times, assess the environment – from the state of the carpets to any bad smells – and then write a detailed report.

We’re called Experts by Experience because we’ve all had direct and extensive contact with health or social care services, usually as a result of caring for a family member. So we’re there to make sure the people using these services – and their families – are listened to.*

People in homes for the elderly typically have high levels of need. It could be serious physical ill health; it could be dementia – often both.

Conversations can be repetitive, fragmentary or non-existent. While the CQC inspectors wade through the minutiae of care plans and staff training files, check regulations and interview managers and carers, we sit and chat and observe how the residents actually live.

We wait patiently while they struggle to find their words. We watch interactions between staff and residents, listening for signs of disrespect and noting the many examples of genuinely warm and affectionate care.

Sometimes we pause, put the investigative work on one side and simply listen to life stories. A widow still grieving for a young husband lost in the war. A relative wracked with guilt because they can’t look after their loved ones in their own homes anymore.

Conversations can be unbearably intimate. Elderly women will tell you about the children they wished they’d had. Recovering alcoholics describe the families that fell apart in their drinking years.

Afterwards, we sift through it all, pulling out the important details. Our reports are woven into the inspectors’ final judgements of the standards of care, and include many direct quotes.

It’s interesting and rewarding work and, CQC colleagues tell us repeatedly, we are “unique and valuable” members of the inspection teams.

But evidently not valuable enough.

The CQC contracts out the Experts by Experience programme. It’s run by a number of “support organisations,” including AgeUK for whom I have worked on a zero-hours basis.

Now, after a protracted procurement process, AgeUK and a number of other charities have lost their contracts in three out of four English regions.

From February 1st, the programme will be run instead by Remploy – once a government agency, now a private company majority-owned by US health and human services business Maximus.

Remploy/Maximus have promised to deliver hundreds more Experts by Experience for the CQC. But the budget is tight and presumably they also have to deliver profits for their shareholders. Hence the big cut in our pay.

From £17.00 per hour, to £9.40 in London and £8.25 elsewhere.

In other words, people with considerable expertise and years of experience, selected through a rigorous interview process and then given specialist training, are being offered the Living Wage.

Less than my student nephew gets for a match-day shift at the pub.

True, few of us became Experts for the money. And we’ve always put in extra hours for free.

But some Experts are retired and living on modest pensions. Others have caring responsibilities or disabilities that make this kind of flexible work a lifeline. For them, the pay cut (announced just three weeks before the new contract was due to start) is a real blow.

But more than that, regardless of personal circumstances, the terms of the new contract are insulting. Not just to us but to the elderly and vulnerable people we’re there to represent. From next week, it seems, their opinions and feelings will be worth roughly half as much as they are now.

So not surprisingly, we’re protesting. Or at least trying to.

It’s not easy communicating with other Experts. Though we have Contracts of Employment, we’re not apparently employees. We’re merely “workers” and as few of us are members of the recognised work-place union, it has declined to get involved. Welcome to the zero-hours world.

But bit by bit we’re connecting with each other and discovering that very few of us are prepared to work for a private contractor for such low pay. (Oh, did I mention they’re shaving an hour off the already short time paid for report writing and a few pennies off the mileage allowance too? The shareholders will be pleased.)

The CQC says it’s aware of our concerns but that the new contract is a good one because there’ll be many more Experts by Experience over-all. But who will they get for such low pay? And when are they going to be recruited and trained?

Calls to Remploy go unanswered. (The receptionist has no extension for the Experts by Experience programme). It has therefore been difficult to discover more about the contract discussions that the CQC says are continuing. So far, our protests have produced what the CQC clearly thinks is a sweetener: existing Experts who join Remploy will get “up to” £15.00 per hour for the first six months of the new regime.

A small pay cut to help a big company get its new business up and running so that it can then take an even bigger slice of our pay?

No thanks.

Unlike the vast majority of people on zero-hours contracts (cleaners, carers, food industry workers… admittedly a growing list), I’m a well educated stroppy middle class professional and I can afford to just walk away.

But I’m sad that an inspection this week was my last. Sad also that there are unlikely to be many (if any) experienced and qualified Experts available for inspections come February 1st.

And mostly I’m sad – and angry – that the same free market, get-the-rock-bottom-price-whatever ideology that encourages faceless corporations to squeeze money out of public services has now swallowed up a socially valuable job I loved.

Once again, it’s the powerless and vulnerable who’ll suffer as a result.

(UPDATE: Thirty-six hours after this blog was published, the CQC acknowledged the concerns of Experts by Experience and announced an update on its contract negotiations with Remploy. Now, in addition to the offer of six months work at £15.00 per hour, there’ll be an additional six months at £12.50. After that, pay will be set at an as yet undecided rate. (That’s despite Remploy having sent us all details of the very much decided £9.40/£8.25 pay). A sliding scale of insult and uncertainty then. They can still count me out.)

(*While I do mostly elderly care, other Experts focus on homes for people with mental health problems or learning disabilities. We also join inspections of hospitals, GP surgeries and domiciliary care. All are affected by the change in contract)

I’m sitting in the kitchen reading your blog close to tears of fury! It’s a disgrace that your voice won’t be available to some of the most vulnerable in our society. The continuing obsession on the bottom line in social care will only lead to more Southern Cross and Winterbourn View cases. So sorry Claire

So glad we have got you exposing this scandal. As an explores spinal, I do have a pension, but had to give up my profession to care for a husband with a rare early dementia. Working as an EXE gave me back some confidence and also let me feel that I was making a good social contribution after he entered nursing care. I’m appalled by the low value CQC has placed on all of our work, and on the people we care for, while insisting it really values us all. Disgust doesn’t come near.

I am in exactly the same boat as you Claire. You have put across exactly my sentiments. I did my last Inspection last week. A sad day – our son is vulnerable and in Residential Care, and I want people like you and I to continue to be part of the Inspection teams. The cynic in me says they need to offer the carrot of the increased rate for 6 months, whilst they get other newbies trained up, then we will all be back to the lower, insulting rate. They have Inspections that they need to fill now. Very sad direction indeed.

Well thought out and written piece.My wife was an Expert and had decided to walk away after the takeover when she heard the rates of pay(only when she was asked to take part in a visit from a third party co. as no one from Remploy had contacted her. Hopefully this may make them review it although We won’t hold our breath!

I have been an expert for 3 years with 2 nursing qualifications a Pst grad in mental health and a masters in health and social care. I feel insulted and let down by the CQC I feel undervalued and will not be taking on more work.

Ordinary Written question to: Health for answer on 29 Jan 2016 12:00 AM
Is the SoS aware that Remploy is reducing the payments to Experts by Experience by almost a half to the level of the Living Wage and will he make a statement.

Ordinary Written question to: Health for answer on 29 Jan 2016 12:00 AM
Does the SoS accept that Experts by Experience are a valued part of the inspection system in our NHS and the downgrading of their salary by Remploy is sending out the wrong message about their importance.

Ordinary Written question to: Health for answer on 29 Jan 2016 12:00 AM
Can the SoS explain why Experts by Experience were not allowed to be considered under TUPE arrangements when Remploy took over their contracts.
I await their reply

Thank you so much for writing this, which reflects exactly how I feel about the whole sorry business. It is also both sad and infuriating that the CQC has chosen to ‘communicate’ with experts by issuing press releases with inaccurate information. You are right that the latest sliding scale of reducing pay looks both desperate and insulting.

Choice Support have not changed role or pay scales, therefore the same role is being carried out in different parts of the country at different pay scales with the knowledge of David Behen. This flies in the face of his public announcements by him as to the importance of the role and respect for the expert.

thank you so much for publishing this. I too did my last ExE inspection last week. As usual it was challenging, frustrating and felt hugely important. I had tried to be professional and not bitter about the changes, but couldn’t bottle it any longer when I handed my notes over to the inspection team and said “goodbye”. They were all lovely, and I was shocked that they didn’t know what was happening!
I too have tried to contact Remploy without much success (just the FAQs which confirm the pay rates and tell me I am required to complete an application form). Also the CQC who have not replied.
Its such an insult to not even get a message saying that we are wanted, especially when the CQC keep saying publicly how valuable the ExEs are and how here will be even more patient and service-user involvement.
Anyway, thanks for publicising this. Much appreciated to know that, even if it wont change much.

Given that we all get old and most of us will end up in a home, surely it is in everyone’s interest that such homes are genuinely caring, pleasant environments for elderly people with special difficulties to end their lives in. Why do we not value those who give such care? I do believe that being valued doesn’t just involve being told one is good at one’s job and being appreciated for this, but is also reflected in the pay. Big businesses trying to make money out of such companies? It just doesn’t make sense and will not ensure the best quality of care.

I’m an ExE (& worked as a journalist) too – I was recruited through the Challenging Behaviour Foundation & have an adult daughter with learning disabilities. Thanks Claire for going public on this scandal. I feel let down by the shoddy way we’ve been treated, & how it flies against the rhetoric of how valued ExEs are. Like many ExEs, I believe I offered great value for money. I.e., I do shorthand so was able to get lots of the quotes that inspectors love & there was never enough time allocated to include all I wanted to in my inspection reports so I put in extra unpaid hours. I was also involved in the production of the ExE bulletin, which made good use of my journalism skills. I’m now looking for a new job.

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